The poll, created on TD fan page, asked people who they supported in the upcoming elections.

Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy

Vijayawada: Manipulation in online voting might be easy, but TD was caught on the wrong foot on Tuesday. A party Facebook fan page that trolled Opposition Leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his party activities was quick to delete a poll of ‘Who is next CM of AP’ where Jagan garnered more votes than Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The poll, created on TD fan page, asked people who they supported in the upcoming elections. A total 14,300 people cast their votes and Jagan ‘defeated’ Naidu. Later on, it was deleted from the page even when it was to end two days later. Jagan polled 51 per cent votes.

TD leaders felt the poll was not genuine. Party politburo member and Agriculture minister Somireddy Chandra Mohan Reddy ruled out the poll and said many factors influenced the poll and in fact, “none cared for Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy as they had no confidence” in him.

“Jagan has spent all his time falling at the feet of Modi and the BJP to escape from cases filed against him. If the poll is conducted genuinely, TD would definitely get 80 per cent,” Mr Chandra-mohan told Deccan Chronicle.

YSRC was quick to say the poll reflected the gr-ound situation. “All these years, people believed that Chandrababu Naidu is a visionary and an experienced man. With that belief people voted him in 2014. Of course he could win with a wafer thin majority. But now things have changed. People have realised that Naidu is an outdated man and was only best at packaging himself rather than working for the people and delivering good governance. That’s the reason for groundswell support to Jagan wherever he goes. These kind of polls will only reflect such gr-ound situation,” Public Accounts Committee cha-irman and YSRC leader Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, MLA, told this newspaper.

YSRC official spokesperson Vasireddy Padma added, “Public came to a conclusion that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is unable to save the interests of Telugus and Andhra Pradesh…”

Hardcore TD fans too are now feeling that it's not the same TD that was founded by NTR based on Telugu pride. Naidu visited Delhi 29 times only asking the Centre to send Jagan to jail and increase the number of Assembly seats and nothing about Andhra Pradesh’s interests. The online poll result only reflects the ground situation.”